Sabbath School Discussion Questions - December 29

Where did Jesus come from?
What was his family like?
What was it like to live in extreme poverty in Judea?
Was Jesus accepted among the people of Israel?

Luke 4:28-30, John 8:58-59

Why did the people try to stone him and throw him of a cliff?
How do you think Jesus felt? Why?
What were the people rejecting?
Can we fathom Jesus’ feelings, can we understand his pain at being rejected by his friends and neighbors?
How did Jesus deal with the rejection?
What other trials did Christ suffer in his time on this earth?
How did he deal with them?
Do we have access to the same strength?

Matthew 27:45

Paul exalts in sharing a small measure of Christ’s suffering and often we hear that Jesus suffered more than anyone ever will, but people, even today are tortured for their beliefs. Lots of people were crucified under the rule of the Romans so what makes Jesus’ suffering extraordinary? What makes his suffering greater than anything we will ever face?
Did he have a choice, could he have chosen not to endure the trial?
When did he decide to be sacrificed for sin?


This quarter we have studied trial and Jesus exhibited all of the qualities set forth as guidelines for endurance: Praise, meekness, patience, seeing the big picture, and dying like the seed. How do we apply these lessons today because we will face trial tomorrow?
Is this how we want to live?
What are we facing?
How will we get through?
How can we make this practice a way of life?

Seeing Jesus

Reading the stories of Jesus recorded in the bible I can’t help but be drawn to the idea that seeing Jesus was the most important thing any of the people of that time could do. They wanted to see him, they had heard about the power and his message and they needed to see him. Some wanted to be healed, some wanted discuss theology, some just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Zacheus climbed a tree, Peter walked on water, people walked for miles and some even tore the roof off a house. They did anything they had to do too see him.

How do we see Jesus today? He ascended to heaven in front of many witnesses and abides even now with his father so how can we encounter him, see him today? We see Jesus every day when we associate with friends who walk closely with him. We see him everyday if we invite him into our lives because he reveals himself, changing our lives. Every time we prayerfully open the bible we see him revealed by the Holy Spirit. He is revealed in the intricacies of nature and the kindness of a Christian. Sweet music lifted in praise opens our eye the character of the creator.

Imagine the joy of a blind man healed, opening his eyes and his first sight is the face of his savior. Think of the peace that fell on Zacheus when his eyes met the Lords loving gaze. Put yourself in the shoes of the demoniacs, lives completely changed from the first moment they laid eyes on the man in the boat.

Everybody who saw Jesus was changed, some where healed, all had the opportunity to be forgiven, and many gave up all to follow him. There is something else all the people who saw him shared. They told someone else what they had seen. He had such a dramatic effect on their lives that they couldn’t help but relate the story to someone else. Can’t you see the man from the pool, his few possessions grasped tightly in his hands, running through the streets shouting I’ve been healed! The sinner, depressed and hopeless, after spending a day listening to the savior assure them of salvation, of peace, of forgiveness, going to their friends and sharing the amazing joy that filled their hearts. Even the Pharisees in their unbelief could speak of little else, seeing Jesus was all they could talk about.
We talk about sharing the gospel, growing the church and witnessing to the world but first we have to see him. The definition of witness is someone who sees, with their own eyes, firsthand, an event. In order to be a witness we must have seen him. Invite him into you heart, open you bible and let him reveal himself to you. When you see him, you will know it because you will be compelled to tell someone else about the incredible, amazing man you just met, the man who is going to save the world.

Troubles - Reading Job

It seems as though we turn to the book of Job in our times of trouble, when we feel picked on and punished unjustly. We all feel as like we can relate to Job in some way so it’s easy to identify with him when life’s challenges come our way. I have to confess I have been reading Job lately and I have learned two very surprising things.
First of all, exciting revelation number one, Job’s friends weren’t completely wrong. Does this sound familiar? God rewards those who follow his law and punish those who disobey. It’s the basic message of Proverbs and is the theology espoused by Job’s three friends. They believed Job had sinned and deserved the punishment he was being subject to. So why was God harsh with them and required a triple sacrifice to wipe away their sin? They assumed that God always had to act in a certain way and forgot to factor in his complete sovereignty over life on this earth.
Secondly, exciting revelation number two, Job was sinful, yep filled with sin. I know we consider Job to be righteous and unjustly punished but Job’s last words in the book are “But now my eyes see you, therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Job’s sin was pride. He believed himself to be righteous and with his pride came the false belief that he knew what God should be doing. When he realized the scope of God’s sovereignty he recognized his sin and repented.
So in light of these two revelations concerning Job what have I learned? I learned about God, about who he is and what he wants for me. I learned we can’t even imagine what he can do and what his plans are. Job is at its core about God and about how much he wants us to be ready to be with him. He will do anything, and as the book of Job makes very plain, he can.

Sabbath School Discussion Questions - December 22

John 12:24

How is this an analogy of submission to God?
Can you see your experience in the reference?
What does the falling represent? Submitting to God’s contol.
What laying in the ground represent? Waiting for God’s time
What does dying represent? Give up what it has been to become what God want’s it to be.
What is the result? A fruit bearing plant.

Philippians 2:5-9

What is Paul suggesting we become?
How is this different than what we are and want?
Do we have the right to be happy, the right to be healthy, the right to be saved?
How does our view of our rights stand in the way of God’s will?

Romans 12:1-2

How do we know God’s will for our live?
How does seeing God’s mercy impact us?
How can we offer ourselves as living sacrifices?
What does that mean?
How does that look?
Who renews our minds? What does he change?
If we experience this process will our understanding of God’s will change?

I Samuel 3:10

Can you hear God speak?
How do you know your hearing God’s voice?
What do we need to do to be able to hear God speak?
Do you listen?
Quote from Tuesday - bottom paragraph
What would you do if you heard God’s voice and he asked you do something specific?

I Samuel 13:1-14

What stands in our way to hearing and following God’s voice?
Quote from Wednesday – bottom paragraph
1. He saw -
2. He said -
3. He felt -
Self Reliance keeps us from God.
What happens when our own eyes shape our perspective?
What happens when we let God shape our perspective of the situation?
Why is this a critical difference?

What do we do when a situation in our lives becomes overwhelming?
Practically speaking how do we get through? What do we substitute for God?
How would our lives be different if we turned to God instead of food or TV?

How can we seek his will for our lives?
How can we hear his voice?
How can we put aside our own feelings and follow his leading?
How can we have the strength to face trials head on instead of finding a substitute to take the pain away?
How can we be like the seed of wheat?
We can fall into the hands of the creator, to be transformed into a new fruit bearing creation, completely by his creative power and according to his will.

Symbols II

When we think about bible prophecy and end time events I always come up with two questions? My first question is why did God lay history out on such a grand scale for us? My second question is this, if we are all reading the same bible, looking at the same history and believing in the same God why are there some many different versions of what is going to happen? It seems like it should be so plain and so obvious, history lines up so completely with the bible, why is our church the only group that interprets the end time events in this manner.
I’d like to offer my opinions on the second question first. I’m not a genius but when I’m faced with something that doesn’t on the surface make sense I think we must first pray for guidance and then take a step back and try and see the big picture. Previously I wrote about spiritualism in society and the presence of symbols that denote the foundations of today’s institutions. Both of these topics when taken together give a picture of a grand deception, an attempt to hide the nature and character of God and hide Satan’s control of counterfeit religions. Logic tells us that if we believe in the great struggle between God and Satan than we must confirm two things, first it is a spiritual war and second it is going on presently. If a spiritual battle is taking place currently between God and Satan, it is being waged individually within each person on this earth. The war was won on the cross but the battles continue until the second coming. The outcome of each battle is determined by each individual’s choice of whom to follow, to trust God or Satan. My point is this: Satan is currently engaged in a religious battle with God. His logical weapon of choice is false religion. I would add this assertion: The theological foundation of every opposing interpretation of prophecy to what we as Adventist hold to be true, springs from within the church controlled by Satan. This is the church which has embraced spiritualism, is replete with symbols betraying it’s marriage to the idol worshipping cults from the biblical history, the church bible prophecy specifically identifies as the beast is being used as Satan’s tool.
It sounds like I’m saying that Satan has used false religions to deceive the whole world including most theologians and bible scholars. I make that statement based on Revelation 18 specifically verse 23 when a mighty angel speaking about the world religions says “by your sorcery all the nations were deceived”. It doesn’t say some or a few but all nations were deceived and the context of chapter 18 makes it plain that he is referring to the established, accepted most widely attended religions. Any interpretation of prophecy that does not identify the Catholic Church as the beast in Revelation is a product of Satan’s attempt to manipulate and deceive the people of this world.
Why did God lay history out so plainly for us to follow in books of bible prophecy? There are many reasons but I think one stands above the others. God wants us to have confidence in absolute truth. One of the foundational components of morality on the earth is a clear distinction between what is right and what is wrong. Most in society, even Christians ask, what right do we have to judge what’s right, who’s right and what is truth. The popular view is that everyone has a little bit of truth. By very clearly laying out the events of history before hand, so we looking back can clearly identify the unerring accuracy of his predictions we can be confident the bible is the absolute truth. If an interpretation of prophecy does not line up exactly with the bible, and identify each of the beasts according to the bible, the interpretation is in error and is to be disregarded. Not by our standards but by God’s standard, the bible.
As Christians we have the privilege of being entrusted with the knowledge of what the future holds. By laying history out so plainly in the bible he gave us security in the knowledge the bible is absolute truth. Lovingly God does everything for a reason and in this time of deception and contradiction in theology and knowledge the one thing that we can hold on to his our faith in Jesus and the knowledge that he told us everything, Our whole perception of the bible and the our picture of the savior changes when we see clearly, looking through the lens of absolute truth at the written word of God. When God through his messenger laid out the worlds history in 400 BC he was making a statement to us, I am the good Sheppard, follow me.

Symbols

We are being overwhelmed with stories and discussions about symbols. Popular movies and books have discussed at length the secret meanings behind most of the major symbols of Christianity. As Christians how do we respond when our friends and neighbors ask us what we think and why religious symbols are important. Before you go and tell them all the talk about symbols is a bunch a hogwash remember, as Adventists we are big, big purveyors of religious symbols. We love symbols. We just think about our own symbols and how we interpret them and how important they are to us. If God uses symbols to reveal hidden truths to his followers doesn’t it make sense that Satan, the big imposter, would employ symbols to deceive the faithful?

It is very important for us to realize God means for us to understand the symbols in Daniel and Revelation. The symbols surrounding the beasts reveal the hidden characteristic and identity of the beast. In much the same way the hidden characteristics of the false religions of this world are revealed by their symbols. Churches and cathedrals are decorated inside and out with ornate decorations, symbols, representing the history of the theology. These decorations, or symbols, reveal the truth behind every organization and religion.

In what has to be the biggest scam ever pulled, Satan, with the use of symbols deceived and subverted an entire church. About three hundred years after the death of the Savior the Roman emperor Constantine was trying to hold together an empire. He was on dangerous ground because he had three factions within his realm ready to kill each other, in a real sense the empire was at a crossroads. Constantine had to find a way to appease the Greeks, the Christians and the Romans. He announced a day of worship to honor the venerable sun, Sun-day. He convinced the Greeks and Romans this was to honor the sun deity that he and his family had worshiped. He than set out to convince the Christians the new day of worship was in honor of the “son of God”, it wasn’t as hard as it should have been. It turns out the Christians, most of whom were converts from the sun worshiping cults, didn’t want to be identified with the Jews and their Sabbath so the transition was relatively painless.

How can we know this is what really happened? History has documented these facts quite precisely but the symbols provide the absolute proof of the marriage between Christianity and the ancient pagan sun worshiping cults. Find a picture of St. Peters Basilica in Rome and look what is sitting directly in front of the steps. It is an oblique from Egypt, their most important symbol of ra, the Egyptians sun god, worship. It’s presence in the Basilica is a reminder, a symbol of the connection between the ancient sun worshiping cults and modern religion. In ancient paintings and sculpture we find pictures of the Savior and his apostle outfitted with halos, with rays emanating from their heads. This is a representation of a figure that has been blessed by the sun god. The symbols remain to tell the story of the Church’s incorporation of sun worship, or Baal worship, into the mainstream theology. Every major Christian holiday started as a pagan festival occasioned to worship the sun and adopted to deceive the faithful. Satan does not need to get mankind to worship him, he must only get them to worship a different sun and he has won the battle.

By understanding the symbols we can divine the purpose of the institution. We can see the identity of the last day institutions as revealed by the beasts in Daniel and Revelation and we can identify the master being served by the earthly combatants. Look for the symbols representing where you spend your time and to whom you’ve pledged you fidelity. If an organization is under the manipulations of Satan its symbols will be those shared by pagan worshipers since Old Testament times.

How could anybody be decieved by spiritualism?

Have you ever wondered what the big deal with spiritualism is and why it figure so prominently into the prophecies concerning the end of time? It seems like such and obviously sinful and evil thing and my first question would be how could anybody be deceived by the occult?

What is the spiritualism anyway? Spiritualism is communication or worship with/of Satan and his fallen angels. For the answer to how spiritualism impacts the end time we have to think about the great controversy again. The great battle being waged between Satan and God. Satan is trying to win as many people to his side as possible and his favorite tactic is deceit. He must have the allegiance of as many of this earth’s people as possible and if he has to do this by misdirection, we know he will do whatever it takes. We don’t have time to discuss every avenue Satan has taken to subvert Christianity but I would like to discuss a couple of the most popular and destructive schemes being used today that concern spiritualism in a way that may not be obvious.

Christian are not deceived by the open worship of Satan and the pagan rituals and worship that have existed for thousands of years so lets talk about how Satan is working an enormous scheme today. Have you looked through a TV listing guide recently? If you have you have seen programs called Medium or psychic connection and shows with the premise being communication with the dead or characters with psychic abilities. At first blush this seems like something that would be openly condemned by established religion but they are facing a dilemma, their own teachings have given rise to the popularity of these TV programs. By telling Christians that upon death the soul goes to heaven or hell or purgatory mainstream Christianity has left the door open to the possibility humans might be able to contact and communicate with the souls of people who have died. The bible tell us definitively the dead know nothing (eccl )and Jesus refers to death as a sleep. By teaching the existence of an immortal soul the door is left open for spiritualism to creep in. If the dead know nothing, who do you think mediums are talking too? God would not allow his angels to participate in something that is completely opposite of what the bible teaches. Satan is the only one who stands to gain from a pretend conversation with someone who has died. He gains by deceiving someone, someone perhaps otherwise bound for heaven, into believing something God said is not true.

Perhaps an even greater deception being unleashed by Satan to deceive unsuspecting followers of Jesus is the practice of speaking in tongues. This practice is being promoted by many churches and has even been incorporated into the Catholic creed. Remember Satan doesn’t have to get us 100 percent off track he only must get us to waver 1 percent. Careful study of the gift of the Holy Spirit and the gift of tongues at Pentecost will reveal the misrepresentation of this gift today. At the time of the Pentecost the gift of tongues was used by the apostles to communicate with people from different regions with whom they did not share a dialect. The Holy Spirit spoke through the apostle to the heart of the potential convert in their own language bringing about conviction of sin, repentance and baptism. In modern churches speaking in tongues is seen as a sign of a convert’s earnestness, their own self gratification, and has nothing to do with reaching the ears of a foreigner with the good news about eternal life.

So what’s the big deal about spiritualism? As you can see the two examples given have affected the spiritual life of millions of people on this earth at this crucial end time. The only way to see past the elaborate deception is to open our bibles and diligently study it’s teaching on what happens when people die and how God reacts to those who try to communicate with Spirits.

Christmas Time?

Let me ask you a question, when is the second coming going to occur? I know it sounds like a trick questions but over the course of the next few weeks you will be asked to seriously consider this question and I think it’s very important that we do. Some of us have grown up as Seventh-day Adventists and have always had an awareness of the nearness of the second coming. Our parents told us we probably wouldn’t ever have kids because Jesus was going to come back any time. Some of us came into the church recently as a result of an evangelistic series and we’re still studying and trying to understand exactly what the bible means when it talks about the end of time and all of those beasts. Some of us, well we just don’t think about it. We’ve just never really given it that much thought.

Instead of focusing on the intricacies of prophecy, and I do believe that God intends for each one of us to have the ability to understand his prophecies, lets look at the big picture for a few minutes. What is God’s plan? Remember it’s all about the great controversy, the struggle between God and Satan, and who will be proven right. This is a spiritual battle. All the imagery in Danial and Revelation talks about beast and battles and kings and armies and those things matter and figure into the final scenario but this is a spiritual war. The battle on this earth is taking place in the hearts and minds of the people and in the churches of the world as the masses come to worship.

God’s plan is for his son Jesus, at the conclusion of the Judgment, when he has been proven just, to return for those who have lived and are living as faithful followers of God. Jesus will return for his people as he has promised. This is the most important point for us to remember. The second coming of Jesus has faded into secondary importance and rarely mentioned within the mainstream churches. We should not forget that this is the most important event in this universes’ future because it will mean the completion of the judgment and the end of the great controversy. The war between God and Satan will be over.

So when will Jesus return? When the judgment is complete and the controversy is over. When God finishes exposing Satan’s deception to the universe Jesus will return. Easy enough answer but what does that mean for us? Think very honestly about this question: when you think about the second coming of Jesus what do you think about? If I were to answer this honestly I would express some sort of relief relating to my own trials. Jesus’ last words on earth dealt with this issue. He wanted us, when we think about the second coming to think about what we need to do to make sure no one is left behind. As we consider the nearness of Christ’s return think about what you can do to help someone else be ready.

(Next time we will ask the question: What is the big deal about spiritualism anyway?)